An award-winning journalist examines the U.S. government’s broken compact with its Muslim citizens.

In this sweeping narrative history, Rozina Ali demonstrates how the War on Terror, conceived in the wake of the September 11 attacks, only accelerated long-standing conflicts between American law enforcement and Muslim communities around the country. Ali follows four Muslim families across eight decades to narrate a range of experiences shaped by relentless suspicion and prejudice. From the surveillance of Arab activists that began in the 1960s and laws in the 1990s that broadened the definition of terrorism, to mass detention in the 2000s and the rise of think tanks and nonprofits that sowed panic about the threat of Islam itself, Seasons of Fury reveals the history of policies that have warped the American perception of Muslim communities—and disillusioned generations of Muslims who sought the promise of the American dream.

Rozina Ali worked on Seasons of Fury: Four Families and the Rise of Islamophobia in America during her 2022-2023 Fellowship at the Library’s Dorothy and Lewis B. Cullman Center for Scholars and Writers. She will discuss her book with journalist Isaac Chotiner.

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ABOUT THE SPEAKERS

Rozina Ali is a journalist and contributing writer at the New York Times Magazine, a fellow at Type Media Center, a fellow at New America, and was previously a senior editor at the Cairo Review of Global Affairs. Ali writes primarily about the War on Terror, Islamophobia, the Middle East, and South Asia, and her work has been featured in the New Yorker, Harper’s, Foreign Affairs, and the Nation, among other publications. She is a recipient of the National Magazine Award in Reporting.

Isaac Chotiner is a staff writer at the New Yorker, where he is the principal contributor to Q. & A., a series of interviews with public figures in politics, media, books, business, technology, and more. Before joining the New Yorker, Chotiner was a staff writer at Slate and the host of the podcast “I Have to Ask.” He has written for the New Yorker, the New York Times, the Atlantic, the Times Literary Supplement, the Washington Post, and the Wall Street Journal. After graduating from the University of California, Davis, Chotiner worked at the Washington Monthly before joining the New Republic, in 2006, as a reporter-researcher. He went on to run the magazine’s online books section and later became a senior editor.

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In-Person | Assistive listening devices and/or hearing loops are available at the venue. You can request a free ASL (American Sign Language) interpretation or CART (Communication Access Real-Time Translation) captioning service at least two weeks in advance of the event: please submit your request via this form. This venue is fully accessible to wheelchairs. 

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The Cullman Center is made possible by a generous endowment from Dorothy and Lewis B. Cullman in honor of Brooke Russell Astor, with major support provided by Mrs. John L. Weinberg, The Andrew W. Mellon Foundation, The Estate of Charles J. Liebman, The von der Heyden Family Foundation, John and Constance Birkelund, and The Samuel I. Newhouse Foundation, and with additional gifts from Helen and Roger Alcaly, The Rona Jaffe Foundation, The Arts and Letters Foundation Inc., William W. Karatz, Merilee and Roy Bostock, and Cullman Center Fellows.